Apr 13, 2014

One Man's Trash, Another Man's Treasure

What is the definition of "trash" and "treasure", and the differences of "collectibles" and "antiques"?

Simply are the stuff to be thrown away for more storage spaces in the house while those stuff with personal sentimental values for keepsake for posterity.

I think the "Keep Singapore Clean" campaign for decades to keep Singaporeans since early schooldays have been successful and effective in our garden city. One of the visual transformation of the Singapore River for cleaning up over a decade ... not only the atmosphere, the environment and the public places, but the long forgotten memories of the smell.

Foreign travellers, visitors and tourists now flock to the Singapore River, Marina Bay and the many places of interest in Singapore. Our multi-racial, multi-religion, multi-language, multi-culture society and one people, one nation, one Singapore to live, work and play in harmony in peace, political stability and economy prosperity together to make Singapore an unique country in the world.

Young children are also trained to keep their homes clean too. During the year-end school holidays before the new year, the family would work together to "use our hands" campaign to make our homes spick and span, the home and workplace environment and living conditions.

However, one man's trash is another man's treasure. In a "throw-away modern society" today, the younger generations all over the world are learning to "reuse, reduce, recycle".

During my young days, I started the hobby of collectibles of small items within my monthly strict budgets. I have collected little by little, bit by bit, over decades to save some souvenirs and collectibles to store fond nostalgic memories and personal experiences. Some of these little "treasures" I bargained at Sungei Road in Singapore where I roamed during weekends.

About 10 years ago, I had the first experience to visit Edmonton, Canada. My trip was on a "shoestring budget". I travelled on backpack by public transport and cars driven by my friends in Canada. I stayed in their homes in Edmonton.

Old Strathcona Antique Mall - Edmonton, Alberta

Old Strathcona Antique Mall is located in the historic Old Strathcona area of Edmonton. It host over 130 antique dealers offering the area’s finest antiques & collectibles with over 27,000 square feet of treasures over two floors. I spent a day at the antique mall to explore a place I have not seen elsewhere in Singapore.
It was awesome! I was young again once more! To me, those were collectible treasure, not trash!

Over a decade since my last visit to Old Strathcona Antique Mall, many things have changed as I watched this video on YouTube. The business have gone online and the design of the dealers' booth over three hundred booths and showcases are neatly arranged, partitioned according to the categories of items.

Please share memories of heritage and collectible friends of "treasure", converted from "trash"!

2 Comments:

Thanks James I visited one mall too. It was full of collectibles. Wonderful.Unfortunately our house is too small. Young people is constantly moving houses so can't be bothered to move used things over to new house. Therefore the spirit of collecting dies. If we were to have a big house and a permanent one for new generations I am sure they live to collect too.